Best Of
Re: Some troubles with new sila efforts
I too have been thinking about this thread. I started a new job and from day 1 my main responsibility has been to interact with and help an external stakeholder of the company with a track record of extremely dubios affairs in relation to the best practices of the industry. This stakeholder, while being external, is still closely related to the company and the company can fire him. It's clear to me that this stakeholder should have been fired ages ago, but he's too big and important for that, from the perspective of the company.
I'm trying hard to act professionaly and ethicaly but am becoming really pissed off by the situation.
Anger and self-rightesousness? Aha!
I think I will try to seek out counsel from someone within the industry who is both ethical and more senior than me and who is not embroiled in the situation and can thus be objective.
marcitko
Re: Some troubles with new sila efforts
You might find some inspiration/pointers by following the Sila Zen Ox...
https://www.lionsroar.com/searching-for-the-ox-the-path-to-enlightenment-in-10-pictures/
lobster
Re: Community
@Linc said:
(This is not an invitation to rebellion lol)
Oh well. Was looking forward to the rebellion. 
Will have to look elsewhere or just enjoy some free time... 
lobster
Re: Some troubles with new sila efforts
For whatever reason this thread came up in my mind today. The thoughts that percolated up were that a good portion of our personality is genetic, we're disposed to being introverted or extroverted. Agreeable and disagreeable is another similar personality spectrum. Its often hard to change these traits in a deep way about ourselves (neuroticism <-> emotional stability being the most changeable I'll note as a point in favor of a spiritual practice), but we can develop skills in the other direction. I'm pretty introverted, but need to meet new people and persuade them of my ability professionally often so have developed extrovert skills.
The other reflection I had was that for much of my life people never really confronted me on certain behaviors or when work I did wasn't up to par. As such they never got corrected or improved upon and it led to problems in my life. Since, I've adopted an attitude that its often kinder in the long run to tell someone they need to use deodorant for example. But there are kinder and more tactful ways of doing that.
Then this interview on 10% Happier came up today and felt very relevant.
person
Re: Community
@person said:
its also possible for a bottom up sort of authoritarianism to develop, a sort of mob mentality.
This is the type I was most concerned about in my first decade or so of moderation & group organizing. It was the primary reason for accepting that Brian and I were "benevolent dictators" and the underlying rationale was that these aren't civic spaces, they are opt-in, and so little of tangible value is lost (to you) if you choose to leave, so why be concerned so much with its governance?
I now think it was a useful but overly-convenient perspective that allowed me to ignore some of the tensions therein.
(This is not an invitation to rebellion lol)
Linc
Re: Trauma and Buddhism
Great Ajahn Chah story from the interview — Jack Kornfield was a student of Ajahn Chah…
Ajahn Chah wasn’t afraid of working with emotions. When I was twenty-two, I went to live and meditate in a forest hut. At that time, I was a peaceful person in my own eyes. My father had been violent and abusive, and I’d been the peacemaker of the four boys. That’s who I thought I was. Then when I meditated, to my surprise I discovered I had an immense amount of anger that I’d stuffed down. The monks near me were irritating me, and all of a sudden, I wanted to, you know, strangle them. It wasn’t their fault. It was all the stuff I’d never looked at.
I went to Ajahn Chah and said, “I’m really angry.” He smiled, “Good. You’ll learn about anger. Go back to your hut, close the door and the window, and sit there. If you’re going to be angry, do it right. See how big it gets, let yourself feel it.”
Of course, I did—in the hot season and under a tin roof. After a while, it felt like the anger could burn up the whole monastery, the whole world. Then came tremendous pain—grief and sobbing and all the layers around trauma. Ajahn Chah was really instructing me not to avert my gaze.
Bringing out trauma is often misunderstood, but these are primitive reactions to real life events which make their effects felt after weeks or more, and it is only when you can bring it to the surface and hold it with loving presence that it starts to heal.
Jeroen
Trauma and Buddhism
I came across this interesting article in Lion’s Roar, titled From Trauma to Freedom which is an interview with Jack Kornfield on the intersection of Western psychology and Buddhism on the subject of trauma.
Many people expect that meditation will heal the mind and the body, and sometimes that is true, but not always, quite often a loving presence is needed as well. Here’s a short section of the article…
The fundamental understanding is that you are and have always been free. You can be identified with your trauma, or you can remember that who you are is consciousness itself. Loving-awareness shifts you out of identification with your roles, your body, your history.
When Nelson Mandela walked out of Robben Island prison after twenty-seven years and became such an inspiration to South Africa and the world, part of his message was that they can put your body in prison, but no one can imprison your spirit, and no event in history can do that either.
Modern trauma research shows that trauma exists in a different part of the brain than painful memories. The part of the brain that’s carrying trauma is experiencing you still being in danger—still in the midst of it. If you’re a vet on the street and a car backfires and you duck because it sounds like you’re under mortar fire, you’re still living in that field of trauma. A lot of the best trauma work helps you shift from the trauma still being alive and actively directing your life, to having felt and experienced the trauma, but knowing it as memory from the past.
Fascinating stuff.
Jeroen
Re: Community
@lobster said:
It is compliance with diversity and allowing of differences.
This is the tension that I find interesting. A study that I believe was also in The Righteous Mind on small, intentional communities (like religious or hippish communities, for example) the greater the number of shared behaviors like wearing the same clothes, required attendance at religious meetings the longer the community lasted. Which I think is pointing at solidarity and group cohesion. I think some of the left gets that these days too the DSA does things like including pronouns in bios and introductions, land acknowledgements, and snapping instead of clapping.
But self expression and diversity are also valuable strengths, so how to balance those things?
I think the Greek word Telos is helpful. Its about ultimate purpose or aim, a main telos of a university is knowledge production.
person